It's slowly getting tight

The coalition is still aiming to pass the 2024 budget this year, says FDP budget expert Fricke. However, the original plan to have everything through before Christmas seems to have been abandoned by the coalition.

It took a few days for the coalition to come to terms with the new reality. It was only a week after the Federal Constitutional Court's budget ruling on October 15 that the coalition canceled the so-called adjustment meeting of the budget committee. This had only been postponed following the court ruling. The federal government initially wanted to stick to the schedule of passing the budget for the coming year in the Bundestag at the beginning of December.

This is no longer the case. If the representatives of the traffic light coalition are now commenting publicly on the timetable for the budget negotiations, they are doing so rather cautiously. "It is still possible to adopt the 2024 budget this year," FDP budget expert Otto Fricke told ntv. "That is still the goal of the coalition parties."

The SPD in particular had originally put pressure on the government. "We want the budget to be passed in 2023 and then everyone will know by Christmas what it will look like next year," SPD leader Lars Klingbeil told ntv at the end of November.

Lindner already says it "as a precaution"

The FDP is in less of a hurry. It is "of course" still possible to pass the budget for 2024 this year, party leader Christian Lindner recently told Bayerischer Rundfunk radio. "I'll just say this as a precaution: after every federal election, it is customary for the budget for the following year to be adopted at the beginning of the year and for there to be a short phase of so-called provisional budget management."

There are hardly any insights into the negotiations. What is publicly demanded largely corresponds to the well-known catalogs of the parties. Negotiations are taking place primarily between Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Economics Minister Robert Habeck and Finance Minister Lindner. There does not appear to have been a breakthrough: "First of all, we had to analyze the ruling," Habeck said on Anne Will on Sunday. "And now we are trying to compensate for these funds," he added with regard to the missing billions. "In the talks we are holding, we are really trying to identify in the depths of budget tables or the climate and transformation fund what may come later, what we may not want to do or be able to do at all."

The coalition has already missed one deadline: In order to adopt the 2024 budget at a regular cabinet meeting, the coalition would have had to reach an agreement by St. Nicholas Day. If an agreement is reached now, the decision would only be possible by way of a so-called circular procedure, which would not be a problem, however.

"It takes as long as it takes"

Government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit said on Wednesday that he was confident that the cabinet decision would be made before the end of the year. SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert, however, dampened expectations: Speaking on ntv's "Frühstart" program, he called a solution to the budget crisis before Christmas "sensible" and said he believed it was possible. "But it will take as long as it takes."

This is also due to the fact that another ruling from Karlsruhe won by the CDU/CSU obliges the coalition to give members of the Bundestag enough time to familiarize themselves with the new budget. This is because the budget is not finally decided by the Federal Government, but by the Bundestag. A cabinet decision is therefore first followed by consultations in the Budget Committee and, if necessary, a hearing of experts. Whether it is actually possible to adopt the 2024 budget this year depends "of course also on the extent to which the CDU/CSU requests a new hearing and still needs reading time, which is their right," says FDP budget officer Fricke. In any case, the coalition's budget holders are "still prepared to meet between the public holidays".

Once the Budget Committee has completed its work, the budget will be discussed in the Bundestag plenary and then in the Bundesrat. The last week of the Bundestag this year ends on December 15, the same day the Bundesrat also meets regularly for the last time this year. Special sessions a week later are possible. Whether it will still be possible to get through the entire Bundestag and Bundesrat committees after a cabinet decision "depends on how quickly we can finish now and what the deadlines are exactly," said government spokesperson Hebestreit.

One thing is clear: the longer it takes for Scholz, Habeck and Lindner to reach an agreement in their three-way talks in the Chancellery, the less likely it is that the budget will be passed this year. There are still three and a half weeks until the Chancellor's New Year's address.